A skewed three-horse race
KARNATAKA is set to hold elections to its 224-member Assembly within two months. From all appearances, the state is headed towards another hung House and attendant post-poll uncertainties. Karnataka, one of the country’s biggest sources of tax revenue for the Centre, has suffered economic disruptions over the past five years, initially because of the fractured mandate of the 2018 Assembly elections and then due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, there is nothing much on the ground to suggest that voters will give priority to electing a stable government.
The Janata Dal (Secular) is again likely to be in the position of kingmaker, probably also hoping to be the king.
Over the past more than three years, the ruling BJP has not given a good account of itself, what with one controversy after another dogging it soon after it came to power in July 2019, dethroning the 14-month-old Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition government of HD Kumaraswamy. The BJP is thus facing an incumbency disadvantage. Yet, the power of the state’s entrenched caste and religion-centric political coalitions seems to be diluting the likely adverse electoral impact of the anti-incumbency sentiment.
Further, the BJP has not been able to better the Congress as the largest party in the state by vote share in an Assembly poll, though it surpassed the rival in the Lok Sabha elections by a convincing margin. On each of the three occasions in the past when the BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the Assembly, it had only managed to come a close second to the Congress in terms of the vote share. Even so, the Congress has been fighting its own survival battles.
The superior vote share is hardly providing any electoral comfort to the Congress. As in the past few Assembly polls, the contest is again going to be triangular — involving the Congress, the BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) or JDS. But it has been a very skewed three-cornered contest and is likely to become a largely direct, two-way fight in many places. In most of the 224 constituencies, the Congress is pitted against the BJP or the JDS. Therein lies the root cause of the hung verdicts in the state in four out of five Assembly polls since 2004.
Being the main contender across almost all 224 constituencies, the Congress mathematically has a chance of securing a simple majority of 113 seats, even as the BJP is capable of doing well in 165-175 Assembly segments. These seats are largely spread over the Lingayat belt of northern and central Karnataka, and the Hindutva belt of coastal and Malnad Karnataka. Besides these regions, its strong catchment area includes the cities of Bengaluru and Mysuru. However, the party is virtually an ‘also-ran’ in most parts of Vokkaliga-concentrated interiors of southern Karnataka. Thus, for the party it is a huge challenge to win 113 seats out of a maximum of 175 where it is in a real contest. For the JDS, winning 113 seats is an impossible proposition. It is actually in contention in only about 75 seats, mostly in southern Karnataka.
However, the Congress has been struggling to cash in on its advantage of being a strong pan-Karnataka party. The reasons are many. Firstly, while the party is the contender in all Assembly constituencies, the overemphasis on its AHINDA coalition (Kannada acronym for Muslim and Christian minorities, Other Backward Classes and Dalits) has become problematic. The OBCs and even the Dalits are not homogeneous social groups. Thus, support from sub-castes and smaller caste denominations is not undivided. They indeed are divided and remain vulnerable to wooing by rivals, particularly the BJP.
Secondly, the party’s chief-ministerial aspirant and former CM Siddaramaiah’s public postures and polemics have made it difficult for the party to mobilise support from outside AHINDA. The powerful Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities, who together account for at least 25 per cent of the population, view Siddaramaiah’s AHINDA advocacy to be exclusivist. This perception has made it difficult for the Congress to woo the Lingayats and Vokkaligas. While Vokkaligas (11 per cent) are the backbone of the JDS’ social base, the Lingayats (14-17 per cent) constitute the BJP’s core social base. In other words, the Congress’ electoral mobilisation is essentially confined to about 70 per cent of the total population, whereas the BJP targets mobilising support from 85 per cent of the population, as only the Muslim and Christian minorities are largely outside its Hindutva-centric electoral ambit.
On paper, the JDS seeks to mobilise support from every section without exception. But in reality, the party led by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda has come to be largely identified with the powerful Vokkaliga community in southern Karnataka. While the JDS might be confined to just 75 seats, the party’s electoral relevance and clout are derived from the fact that in these constituencies, the Vokkaligas constitute 25 per cent of the population. This gives the JDS an edge over the Congress in these 75 seats. Similarly, the BJP, with strong support from Lingayats in Lingayat-dominated northern and central Karnataka and with the high level of Hindutva-centric polarisation in its favour in the coastal and Malnad regions, makes things difficult for the Congress. As a result, the Congress usually has an overall vote share advantage in the state over its rivals, but it yields seats to JDS in the latter’s stronghold areas of southern Karnataka, while elsewhere the BJP tends to walk away with more seats.
As the elections approach, the BJP leadership is banking more on the purported social coalition to bail the party out of its anti-incumbency troubles. It appears almost certain that the Congress may not be able to secure a simple majority for itself in the elections. Thus, almost assured of a limited presence in the next Assembly, the JDS is again likely to be in the kingmaker’s position, probably also hoping to be the king.
